Periscope

Internal VS Code coding agent that routes through Helmsman — preserves Claude Max quota by defaulting to NVIDIA / Nova / Gemini lanes for everyday work.

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What this is

Periscope is an internal-only VS Code extension. It is a fork of Cline (Apache-2.0) with the provider layer rewritten so day-to-day VS Code work routes through Helmsman instead of burning Anthropic API or Claude Max subscription quota on tasks that don't need Opus.

Not on the marketplace. Not telemetered. Installed via local .vsix.

Why

• Claude Max quota is finite. Most VS Code work (reads, summaries, scaffolding, terse code) doesn't need Opus.
• The official Claude Code extension is closed and Anthropic-only.
• Cline already has a mature provider abstraction, chat UI, file diffs, MCP support, and terminal integration. Forking it is one adapter file per provider, not a from-scratch build.
• Routing through Helmsman gives the same NVIDIA-first / cloud-on-escalation behavior we already use everywhere else.

Providers

Provider	What it routes to	When to use
ask-helmsman (default)	ask_helmsman CLI → auto-classifies and dispatches to NVIDIA / ask_claude / ask_gemini / ask_nova	Default for everything — Helmsman picks the cheapest competent lane per request
ask-nvidia	ask_nvidia --lane <fast|balanced|large|code|thinking>	Direct NVIDIA control when you know the lane you want
ask-claude	ask_claude CLI (Claude Max subscription)	Quality writing, hard reasoning, last-resort fallback
ask-gemini	ask_gemini CLI (Google One subscription)	Web research with grounding, large-context tasks
ask-nova	ask_claude_bedrock CLI (AWS Bedrock Anthropic)	Metered Claude when Claude Max is exhausted
bedrock, ollama, etc.	Upstream Cline providers (kept)	Direct API access when needed

Each non-Bedrock provider is wrapped in a FallbackApiHandler that auto-falls-back to Helmsman on quota / spend-cap / invalid-model errors. Bedrock falls back to Helmsman too. Helmsman itself falls back to ask_claude if the ai-proxy is down.

Configuration

Settings appear in Cmd+, under "Periscope":

• periscope.defaultProvider — provider used when starting a new task and no global state is set yet. Works per-workspace via .vscode/settings.json.
• periscope.helmsman.defaultRoute — auto / web / writing / code. Default auto (Helmsman classifies).
• periscope.nvidia.defaultLane — fast / balanced / large / code / thinking. Default balanced.
• periscope.logLevel — debug / info / warn / error.

Building locally

cd ~/Projects/periscope
npm install
npm run package      # build dist/
npx vsce package     # produce .vsix
code --install-extension periscope-X.X.X.vsix

Architecture

VS Code (Periscope panel)
  └── Cline core (preserved: chat, diff, MCP, terminal)
        └── Provider layer (Periscope-specific)
              ├── ask-helmsman.ts → ~/.local/bin/ask_helmsman
              ├── ask-nvidia.ts   → ~/.local/bin/ask_nvidia --lane <X>
              ├── ask-claude.ts   → ~/.local/bin/ask_claude
              ├── ask-gemini.ts   → ~/.local/bin/ask_gemini
              ├── ask-nova.ts     → ~/.local/bin/ask_claude_bedrock --lane <X>
              ├── fallback.ts     → wraps any handler with auto-degrade to a secondary
              └── (upstream)      → bedrock, openai, ollama, etc. preserved

Vault project notes:

• Projects/Periscope/Periscope.md — full spec
• Projects/Periscope/Audit 2026-05-28.md — latest audit + bug/feature status
• Projects/Periscope/Tech Spec.md — architecture
• Projects/Periscope/Bugs/, Projects/Periscope/Features/ — backlog

Attribution

Forked from Cline — Apache-2.0. The upstream LICENSE and NOTICE files are preserved verbatim per the license terms.

License

Apache 2.0 © 2026 Seaynic Labs LLC. Includes Apache-2.0 © 2026 Cline Bot Inc. (upstream).